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More on Salesforce.com the Notes killer

Since posting about that Salesforce.com story the other day, a little bit of discussion kicked-off on The Register site. In amongst the predictable UI stuff (although in fairness, the comments are less inflammatory than usual), there’s a gem from “Rob”:

we hear about some great new thing that’s going to replace Notes. It’s usually by people who don’t really know what Lotus Notes/Domino can really do. I’ve been developing web applications using Notes/Domino for about twelve years now. I’d like to replace it too but whenever I look for something to take it’s place I never find a system that even comes close.

Notes has a rich set of security permissions unmatched in any other system I’ve ever used, read about or heard about. I’ve been looking at the Google offerings but they have poor security granularity. The expect the programmers to implement it all from scratch in Python. That feels like having to go back and program in assembly language to me.

And that’s just one feature. There are about five more that are killer that I’m not ready to give up. On the other hand if IBM doesn’t bring the dynamic web code generation into the 20th century, I may be forced to move to new tools (and it won’t be Websphere).

In a nutshell! Read….

Posted at 02:30 PDT on 29 Jun 2008   |   Categories:    |      |    salesforce.com lotusnotesdomino

Comments

1. You know what's interesting about this story? Apparently, nothing. The only place I've seen it covered *in the whole world* is the Register article. If the CEO of Salesforce.com is announcing a strategy to go after some portion of IBM's customer base, wouldn't that be "news-worthy" to some other journalist, somewhere? Yet the story is a week old, and nothing.
   
   I liked Rob's comments and was glad El Reg readers didn't go down the /. path. But something about the original story isn't adding up.
   on 29 Jun 2008 by Ed Brill (#)
2. As some of the other comments mention, the “story” is just another marketing guy saying that they will do XYZ without any actual detail to back up his claims. Another indicator as to how immature and unprofessional this business of ours is—no-one is challenging these claims, and journalists just take what they’re told and publish it.
   
   Extraordinary.
   
   I don’t think we’ll hear another peep from Salesforce. Someone will figure out that what they’re claiming is crazy, and the initiative will be quietly buried.
   on 29 Jun 2008 by Ben Poole (#)
3. A little off-topic this, but I've Just been reading through some of the comments on the linked thread, and there is the usual person getting all excited about how bad the Notes "email client" is. Maybe I'm missing something, and maybe (well, actually, definitely) prejudiced in favour of Notes, but I just don't get the zeal. I've used (and developed) Notes for over 12 years, and the email client works fine. I read emails, compose emails, search emails, organise emails, respond to emails. And it all works fine. Where, exactly, do all the other email clients massively surpass Notes email? I admit I have only used Yahoo mail other than Notes mail, but am continually confused as to how exactly Notes is so much worse than the rest.
   on 29 Jun 2008 by Ian Morrison (#)
4. I was just talking to a client who was thinking of moving from Domino to another mail system because Notes mail have so many issues. She asked me why I like Notes and Domino. I told her because there is nothing out there that is as versatile, reliable, and secure as Notes and Domino. Yes, it is awkward to develop, but there is no other system in which you can develop and provide solutions and match Notes and Domino TCO. Yes, IBM still needs to fix a number of things, but the capabilities are unmatched.
   
   @3
   
   Notes mail has its interface issues, but the security and reliability is unmatched. The newer solutions like Gmail look nice but they have a number of problems that will affect not only large organizations. but even smaller organization.
   
   
   on 29 Jun 2008 by Richard Moy (#)
5. @4 "Gamil look nice" : I always have a problem with this...gmail may have interesting features but it nice is not the word I would use to describe it !
   on 29 Jun 2008 by Michael Bourak (#)
6. @5 agreed. I use GMail a lot, and like it very much. But it’s no looker
   on 29 Jun 2008 by Ben Poole (#)